Judge: No sanctions for releasing Boughton deposition

Dirk Perrefort

Published 4:29 pm, Saturday, March 8, 2014

DANBURY -- A federal magistrate has decided not to sanction a Ridgefield labor attorney who city officials claim was trying to "embarrass" Mayor Mark Boughton by releasing depositions in an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by his former executive assistant.

Lawyers representing the city argued in federal court last November when asking for the sanctions that attorney Elisabeth Maurer was trying to "embarrass defendant Mayor Boughton with a view to harming his political career" and force a settlement when she released depositions in the case to members of the media.

Boughton, a Republican and the city's longest serving mayor, is seeking the GOP's nomination this spring in the gubernatorial race.

Maurer said, however, that she finds it troubling a gubernatorial candidate would try to restrict media access to depositions.

"The big news in my humble opinion is the fact that a mayor who is running for governor tried to keep this stuff out of the public eye because it was embarrassing to him," Maurer said. "The judge found no basis for that."

First Amendment advocates were outraged last fall when city officials attempted to restrict access to the documents.

The city asked the federal magistrate to sanction Maurer for releasing the depositions and asked her to refrain from speaking with the media until the case filed by her client, Wendy DaCosta, is resolved.

Zelman also sent a "cease and desist" letter that carried little, if any, legal authority, to a local blogger for putting comments from the depositions on his web site, asking the blogger to stop publishing information from the documents.

"This is a clear infringement on my First Amendment rights," Al Robinson, author of the HatCityBLOG, said at the time. "I believe the city is trying to hide something and the people have a right to know what's in these depositions. This is a very serious matter."

City officials eventually released redacted transcripts of the depositions to the News-Times, months after a Freedom of Information request and days after the November court hearing.

An attorney working for the city, Joanne Zelman, claimed the depositions released by Maurer contained personal information about city employees, as well as personnel matters that both parties had agreed would be kept confidential.

"The court does not countenance Attorney Maurer's cavalier conduct, but sanctions are not in order," Martinez stated in her March 3 decision.

Martinez also noted in her decision that "the defendants have made no showing of substantial embarrassment or harm that outweighs the public's interest in Mayor Boughton's performance of his governmental responsibilities."

DaCosta, Boughton's former executive assistant, filed the lawsuit in June 2012 claiming that her civil rights were violated when she was fired in August 2011 after several harassment complaints were lodged against her by a city department head with whom she had a brief affair.

DaCosta claims other officials, including Boughton himself, have been the subject of harassment complaints but got to keep their jobs.

Boughton has repeatedly denied the claims and called the deposition a "fishing expedition" by Maurer for future possible lawsuits against the city.